Whymper, "Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska", 1869 (fwd from ADS-L)

[David D. Robertson]

[Note:  Sorry, I think I should've made clear in the "potlatch" message
that it's a forward!  This here's a fwd, too, and has some fine CJ in it.]


Date:         Fri, 7 Jun 2002 02:29:36 EDT
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Subject:      Whymper's Alaska/California slang (1868)
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TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE
IN THE TERRITORY OF ALASKA
by Frederick Whymper
New York: Harper Brothers
1869

   OED has about 20 cites from this book and gives it as 1868.
   I just spent a frustrating half hour looking through the RHHDAS and the
ADS-L archives for "eat crow"--maybe I looked in the wrong places.  Anyway,
I'll present the items (all interesting, but not all antedates) and you can
look 'em up.

Pg. 42:  They begged for a "potlatch" or gift, and, glad to get rid of them,
I acceded to their request for a little flour, tobacco, etc.
(I think this would be OED's second "potlatch"--ed.)

Pg. 42:  *"King George man," in the Chinook jargoon (a mixture of Emglish,
French, and Indian, used as a means of converse among most of the white men
and natives of the coast), simply menas an Englishman, and was originated by
the fact that our first acquaintance with them was made in the Georgian era.
"Boston man," or "Boston" simply, stands for an American; the first vessels
bearing the stars and stripes hailed from that port.
(Would be the third "Boston" cite in DARE--ed.)

Pg. 50:  He afterward told us, pointing back to the place with a shudder,
"_Hyu si-wash hyack clattawa keekwully ya-wa_!"--"Many savages (Indians) had
quickly gone to the bottom there," or had found a watery grave.

Pg. 54:  ...were at work "blazing," _i. e._, marking the trees with an axe
to
show where the trail should go.

Pg. 56:  The ideal Red-skin...
Pg. 57:  ...the "pale-faces."

Pg. 102:  ...ranging from Cognac to raw _vodka_, of a class which can only
be
described by a Californian term as "chain lightning"...
(RHHDAS has "chain lightning" from 1837.  California term?--ed.)

Pg. 116:  Perhaps quite as lucid an explanation as you could get from an
agricultural laborer or a "city Arab" at home.
(DARE's earliest "Arab" is 1903?--ed.)


Pg. 136:  When we were tired of games--one of them a Russian version
of "hunt
the slipper"...

Pg. 189:  My first acquaintance with the Yukon, in common with several of my
companions, was made sliding down the bank at a rate of "2.40" (to use an
Americanism),* comfortably seated on my snow-shoes.
*Two minutes forty seconds is the time taken by a high-class trotting-horse
to run a mile.

Pg. 198:  Our banquet of baked ptarmigan and fried ham, pancakes (known,
reader, by the poetical name of "flap-jacks") molasses (known by us as
"long-tailed sugar"), and coffee, pleased our Russian friends well, but our
tea was not to their standard.

Pg. 229:  They "ken eat crow, tho' they don't hanker arter it."
(The original wording of OED's first "eat crow" cite?--ed.)